


March to the Sea

by ghostrick



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M, fisherman pete, language barriers, little bits of gore and violence, merman patrick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-25 06:47:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2612231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostrick/pseuds/ghostrick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pete finds a merman caught up in a fishing net and rescues him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The sky was still dark when Pete woke up in the mornings, the stars slowly fading away and the moon dropping further and further down in the sky as he got himself ready to go out on his boat. He'd learned as a kid that the fishing was best in the early mornings, but living in a fishing town naturally everyone else knew too. So Pete always tried to be the first or one of the very first out in hopes of catching enough fish for the day without having to be out for hours and hours and have the market be empty by the time he was even done. 

It was quiet and cold and peaceful as he set out, aside from the few seagulls who were following after his little boat out to sea in hopes of stealing a couple fish for themselves. Pete didn't mind much so long as they didn't take _too_ many, since usually he caught plenty and loosing a very small number of them didn't hurt him any. 

He didn't know how far out he was when he saw the splashing, far enough from shore to not be able to see it at least. It was still a little too far for him to make out what it was, maybe a dolphin? He could at least make out what looked like a tail coming up high out of the water every so often, so his best guess was probably a dolphin. But it could also be a shark, he supposed. 

Never in a million years would he have expected mermaid though, or, merman anyway. Pete had heard stories of merpeople and heard many many claims of people who had seen or caught or even eaten one. He also wasn't ready for said merman to be tangled up in someone's lost fishing net.

It was a moment of panic when he got close enough to help and didn't know what to do. The thing was tangled up by his tail mostly, had it stuck through a hole or two and then wrapped around it looked like, and then wrapped around his torso. He kept trying to swim down with it, but the big bobbers kept him trapped at the surface. And no matter how much he pushed and pulled at the rope or tried to swim away from it nothing seemed to help. 

Finally, Pete found an opportunity to grab a hold of the rope and he pulled the merman closer enough to be able to catch his arm then. He fought harder to get away then, trying to squirm away from Pete as he lifted him out of the water enough to be able to wrap an arm around his middle and pull him onto the boat, trying to keep the net from digging into him the best he could. 

The poor thing looked panicked, breathing harshly (his gills had since closed up so he could breathe air properly) and trying to climb back over the side of the boat as the fisherman approached. It spoke in words he couldn't understand as he knelt down beside it, now trying to push him away rather than escape and let out a small either surprised or pained sound as Pete caught him by the wrist a little too hard. 

"Can you just calm down for a minute? I'm trying to help you, not hurt you!" the man requested in an obviously frustrated tone of voice. 

The merman stopped then and just stared, perplexed. He had never heard a noise like that ever before in his life, it was strange but not unpleasant... Though he did wish he could make sense of it. 

"That's better. Now stay still so I don't cut you." Pete said, though he wasn't entirely sure if the thing was actually listening too him, but he'd like to hope it was. 

Thankfully, it wasn't afraid of the knife he took out, probably due to never having seen one or not knowing what they were or that they could be used to hurt. He didn't squirm any though as Pete cut through the ropes, simply watched and let him do it. When he saw the blood though, he was a little state of panic again, gasping and then rattling off again in the strange words that Pete couldn't understand any better than the other could him. 

He ignored them, just wanting to free him of the ropes completely before he had to worry about anything else. Once he'd finished he tossed the net aside and examined the pretty blue-green tail that was now marred by blood and a couple very deep cuts. 

Something that sounded like a question came from the creature now, but Pete could only stare back at him as any kind of response. 

He knew he couldn't just throw him back in the ocean now and end up leaving him to bleed out slowly from the one or two gouges, or maybe have a shark come after him instead. And since Pete had already committed this far, he figured he might as well see that the merman was okay enough to at least have a better chance of survival than that. 

Leaving the thing sit there where it was, the fisherman went over to one of the holes on the deck of the boat near the front where he usually put the fish he caught. He opened it up and went back over to the merman, picking him up and carrying him over to set him in the hole. 

He stripped off one of his jackets and tied it around the most concerning cut near the end of his tail, making it as tight as he was able until the creature let out an obviously pained noise, to which he offered back an almost sheepish smile and a "Sorry." 

After making sure it was on good enough for his liking, Pete started filling up the hole with buckets of sea water, since he was sure the merman wouldn't be able to stand being out of the water for too long, and didn't want to end up killing him that way either.

"So, I don't think you understand a word I say, but I'm going tell you what's going on anyway," the man informed then, sitting down on the deck by the merman after he'd out in a decent amounting water for him, "I'm going to take you home with me and fix you up, but I'm sure you'll be good as new in a few days and I'll let you go, okay?"

The merman of course didn't answer and Pete only sighed and spoke a quiet, "Yeah, I didn't think so." before he stood up and went back to take the boat out a little further. 

He couldn't afford not to fish but he made it as quick as he could, only letting the net out once and just taking the small amount of fish that he caught with it. He put them in the other available hole for fish beside Patrick and put them in with a little bit of water as well before he headed back home. When they arrived at the docks, the merman at the front of the boat started speaking again, asking questions again it sounded like but Pete could only guess what he was asking about. 

"I have to carry you up to my house, please, _please_ be quiet while we walk." the fisherman informed simply as he stepped over to pick the merman up out of the water. He really really didn't need anyone to see them, to see that it wasn't a fish he was carrying since they'd more than likely try to take him and do who knows what. He didn't want that, either. As soon as he picked him up however, the creature protested, letting out a loud squeak and thrashing and reaching back towards the water and trying to somehow manage to get down into it again. 

Pete didn't mean to throw him down the way he did, but in a split second the merman was back in the hole and staring up at the man looking very surprised and suddenly very quiet.

He also didn't mean to grab his jaw maybe a little bit too roughly, but he needed him to listen and pay attention, even if he just recognized the harsh tone of voice he was about to use. "If you want me to help you, you need to stop doing that shit right now." he warned. 

Admittedly he did mean to hit him after the merman decided to spit a mouthful of water at him when he let go, slapping him hard and quick across the face and regretting it a few short moments later but not apologizing because the other didn't fight him when he picked him up the next time. But he would hardly even look at him after that, either. Pete all but ran up to his house, taking shortcuts and alleyways in hopes of avoiding anyone and everyone, which he managed to do since the general population was either out fishing themselves now or were just getting up and inside their homes starting their days. 

He took the merperson inside his house without dropping him, and then immediately to his bathtub, which was a big round wooden tub that had plenty of room for the other, tail and all. They'd both calmed down some now, since they were inside and Pete didn't have to worry so much, though the creature still didn't seem to want to look at him. 

"I'll go get you more water. _Stay. Here._ " the man tried to say then in a way that the other might somehow possibly understand what he was telling him. Or that the firmness in his voice would make him not want to do anything but stay where he was anyway. 

Pete left to go back to the docks then and get his bucket and start collecting water, relieved to see that the other was still where he was supposed to be. Who knew how many trips he took back and forth before it was deep enough for both his and the merman's liking, at least a hundred probably if not two. But, when he was able to curl up at the bottom of the tub and fall asleep (Pete had checked to make sure it was asleep and not actually dead obviously) he decided that it was plenty. 

While he was sleeping, the fisherman took the opportunity to check on his wounds again. After getting a jar of ointment that he'd had and some better cloth to wrap around, the man untied his now soaked jacket carefully from its tail so as to not hurt the other or wake him up. It still seemed to be bleeding some, but he rubbed the medicine on the gashes nevertheless. He made sure that they were completely covered in the stuff before he wrapped the tail up again with lots of layers of the cloth and tightly so at to try to not allow the ointment to just come off. 

He left the creature to sleep then and went out to market with the fish he'd caught (not before putting two of the smaller ones in with the merman however) and came home after people stopped coming to buy from him. He brought the remaining fish home for the merman, rather than tossing them back into the ocean or giving them to the gulls. The merman was awake again when he returned and the fish were gone, which were both good signs, and it didn't look like he had tried to take off his wrappings either, which was even better. 

The fisherman sighed and smiled and went to sit beside the tub, asking to see his tail again though he didn't get any kind of response until he touched and the creature lifted it up out of the water again and let him look at it.

It was better than nothing, at least he could kind of understand what the man was trying to ask of him. But Pete wanted nothing more at this point in time than to be able to actually _speak_ with him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The merman learns how to talk (kind of).

Over the course of a few days, Patrick (that was the name that the fisherman had given him) had decided that Pete (he'd learned his name too, and also what names even were) was actually very nice and not scary. He'd only been scary that one time honestly, when he'd been kind of scared and frustrated and didn't know how else to handle himself. But now he was nothing but nice, even when Patrick had a really really hard time figuring out how to say a word. 

Pete had managed to teach him some, like their names and fish and water and yes and no. The basics. Patrick had learned hurt on his own, because Pete said it so much. Actually, the whole phrase 'does it hurt?' which was actually incredibly impressive without having any help. However when Pete was working on his tail and it did indeed hurt, Patrick simply said the one word to let him know. 

In no way were his words perfectly pronounced, and the ones he used less often seemed to be hard for him to even get out at all. But, progress was progress and Pete was feeling pretty accomplished with the little bit that they'd done thus far no matter what.

Really, he was turning into more of a parrot than anything else. But neither seemed to really mind too much. 

He spent his days in the tub which probably would have been much worse without Pete with him but still wasn't entirely pleasant. He was used to roaming the ocean, going wherever he wanted and doing whatever he wanted. Not that there was much to do in the ocean, but he had swam a lot of places. Kelp forests, sea grass meadows, coral reefs...beautiful places. He hadn't meant to get himself trapped in the net, he had only wanted to see what it was. It looked like a floating bed of seaweed from far off, but as he got closer it wasn't and curiosity got the better of him. 

And now he was stuck in one spot and he didn't know how he was supposed to feel about it.

At least Pete was nice enough to keep him in water, right? And kept him kind of busy? After the mornings at least, when he went off to fish and to market. But Patrick was learning to sleep in pretty late. 

He always greeted the fisherman with a happy, "Pete!" when he would hear the door open and sit up out of the tub the best he could so he could see the man as soon as possible. Then it was, "Fish? Fish?" over and over until he finally was given one or two, depending on how many the man had decided to bring home.

His teeth weren't all too much sharper than a humans, didn't need to be really, because fish were very easy to bite through and chew up, bones and all. Hard to hold onto, but after they stopped wiggling it was fine. He could eat a whole fish in a matter of minutes, well the size that Pete fed him anyhow, and if he got two he would allow the other to swim around in the water with him until he was hungry enough for it. 

Speaking of, Patrick was currently playing with his second fish, following after it with his hand as it swam. He hardly noticed Pete beside him until the man spoke, though he still couldn't put together what he said because it didn't involve words he knew. The human sat beside the tub on the floor and set a little wooden something in the water with the merman, something that floated on the surface and towards Patrick when the other had nudged it. When it came too close, he picked it up to examine better.

Pete told him that it was a 'boat' in that slow easy way that meant that he wanted him to try to repeat it. Patrick didn't answer right away however, too busy examining the toy in his hand, wondering how it swam when it clearly wasn't alive. When he was ready though, he let it back in the water and started trying to get the word out as he watched it float. New letters were always terribly hard but Pete always smiled and offered little encouragements as he tried to get the right sound out.

'B' seemed to be particularly difficult, and the more he tried the more he wanted to quit. But he _knew_ that he could manage, and knew that Pete knew too and so he kept on, until he finally found the noise he was looking for, and soon enough the word.

Pete was always do excited when he said something, and so Patrick couldn't help but be too. He was glad to repeat the word as many times as he was asked to before he was made to say other words that he already knew. There were lots of things that Pete would say so so happily after that that Patrick still couldn't understand but liked listening to anyway, if just for the tone, before the human would go off to do something else and leave his merman to himself again to sleep or eat or do whatever else he might be able.

Generally the human would wait until the other was tired to tend to his cuts, since he was much calmer about the whole thing that way. He tried not to mess with them all too much really, in hopes they would heal faster, but he did still check at least once a day or every other to make sure they were actually getting better. 

And they were, having gone slowly from a red, to pink, and now going to a greyish color that didn't stand out too much against his tail. The only worrying thing was the missing chunk of flesh and meat near the end. It was healing along with the rest of it, but Pete was more concerned about if he was going to be able to swim right still. What were they supposed to do if he could only swim in circles or something?

He had considered stitching it up, but he didn't know how to sew really and wasn't even sure that it would even work with his scales. So instead of risking hurting Patrick further, Pete decided that it was a bad idea and didn't even begin to try it.

The man re-covered the wounds after tending to them as per-usual when he was finished before he scooted up so he was closer to the top end of the merman. "You're going to get to go home soon." he said, not missing the way that the other kind of perked up some at the word 'home'. 

It was one of the words he knew, so of course he did and then he even answered back a simple, happy, "Home, yes," and then a bunch of other things that Pete couldn't know. 

Pete personally didn't want him to go home just yet. Or maybe ever. It was nice to have someone around, even if they did only sit in one place and could only understand maybe ten or so things that he said. But Patrick still listened anyway, and that was so important. Keeping him though would be incredibly selfish of him though, since the merman was still very much a wild thing and probably hated being cooped up in something that was way too small. And there was always the possibility that one morning Pete would wake up and Patrick would just be dead, if only because wild things weren't supposed to be kept. At least not by people who didn't know what they were doing. 

So, the man just smiled and assured him with the reiteration of, "Soon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one of the reasons i don't really like to do chapetered things is because i never update them :p and if this is really bad it's probably because i wrote it on my phone..


End file.
